The city is using an old Lord & Taylor, among other places, to literally "store" patients who are awaiting proper treatment. EMTs have to call one hospital after another, with patients in tow, trying to find a place to take them. The Bush administration's neglect of this aspect of the devastation alone is downright criminal.

This was Bush's 13th trip to the Katrina-ravaged area since the hurricane hit. I'm frankly amazed that his crack staff has found 13 places that were suitably press-conference-worthy. They must have to look long and hard for patches of earth that are presentable even within the narrow range of a camera lens.

Too bad Bush will never be capable of feeling the kind of deep, genuine shame that he ought to feel for neglecting this crisis for so long--before the storm, when he dismantled FEMA and packed it with incompetent cronies, and ignored the requests for levee funding and the warnings about the destructive potential of the hurricane; during the storm, while he strummed his guitar and posed at fundraisers; and after the storm, when he has not summoned a scrap of will to get his agencies motivated to rebuild.

Shame.

...then why are they peddling it to schools as educational material?

And even if the Clintonites manage to get some of the more egregious smears stricken from the film, the aggrandizement of Bush--and the exclusion of any mention of his shameless negligence before 9/11--will remain.

At the very least, ABC should show a screen-within-a-screen showing Bush listening to "The Pet Goat" for seven minutes while the towers burn.

Forget, for a minute, all of the Bush administration's negligence leading up to 9/11: the demotion of Richard Clarke's agency; the ridicule of Clintonites as "obsessed" with Osama bin Laden; the failure to respond to the August 6 PDB about bin Laden (and on top of that, sneering to the CIA agent, "Okay, you've covered your ass now"); the failure to accommodate requests from FBI field offices to investigate Middle Eastern men enrolled in flight schools and to seize Moussaoui's computer; the failure of Cheney's "antiterrorism" commission to ever hold a single meeting (while his energy commission, replete with corporate fatcats, met regularly); the complete ignorance about al Qaida and its connection to the Taliban, to the point of holding meetings with the Taliban to build a natural gas pipeline, for God's sake; and on and on.

Let's just look at Bush's behavior on 9/11. He went into that classroom for his little photo op KNOWING that the first tower had already been hit. Then he sat there, frozen and terrified, for seven minutes. If he had acted immediately upon learning the first tower had been hit, or even immediately after the second tower was hit, Flight 93--which was still on the ground when the second tower was struck--never would have taken off.

Then he flew around the country like a frightened child, while his aides made up stories about the terrorists stealing flight codes and targeting Air Force One. Clinton was in AUSTRALIA on 9/11, and made it to Ground Zero before Bush did.

And now we have this total Clinton hatchet job/Bush whitewash on ABC? At least Clinton got his blowjobs the honest way--not from network executives.

...this family has defined itself by 9/11. They seem to wallow in it. As for those who insist we not "judge" their method of grieving, they're the ones out there shouting it from the rooftops. Their grieving borders on some sort of bizarre braggadocio.

As a New Yorker who fled the WTC plaza that day, who lost several good friends, and who knows people who lost close relatives, I am, frankly, a little offended that Salon chose this as their "representative" family on the anniversary of 9/11. The 9/11 families I know are a hell of a lot more dignified and significantly less self-absorbed.

Hint to editors: You don't actually have to print every story submission that comes in. Not only is this a less-than-riveting story about a truly self-obsessed family, but it's badly written as well. It reads like a high school essay on "How I Grieved On My Summer Vacation."

One section of the website features Allen expounding about "Jeffersonian Principles." (I guess we should be relieved that in his shameless pandering to "dark folks," he didn't swap out Thomas Jefferson for George Jefferson.)

Here, he talks about being a "student of history" (I thought Condi Rice had a patent on that phrase), and then proves it by comparing Jefferson to... Ronald Reagan! Then he throws in his own completely nonsensical quote: "I don't like limits and restrictions on people. I think they ought to be only limited by their own hard work, ingenuity, imagination, and their character." Well, if anyone knows about being limited by his character, it's George Allen!

Do The Math.

Yes, Chafee is a decent man and a relatively independent Senator. But as long as he has an (R) after his name, his presence in the Senate helps George Bush. As long as Bush's party controls the Senate, legislation that could protect Social Security, shore up our security, help our troops, strengthen our economy, preserve our environment, etc. will never see the light of day.

And legislation that rubber-stamps the President's Iraq policy, shovels ever-larger tax cuts to the wealthy, jeopardizes Social Security and Medicare, runs up record deficits, destroys the environment, removes regulatory protections, and deprives our troops of propler protection will remain the order of the day.

It may not be a happy choice to make, but there it is. Do The Math.